By Nigeria’s outstanding digital bank for small and medium-scale businesses, Trade Lenda is excited about the impact that it has been able to make in the last four years.
Yesterday in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, the digital bank for SMEs rollout the drums to thank its partners and the businesses that it has nurtured and given technical support were also in attendance to celebrate with the Trade Lenda team.
In ten minutes thank you speech, the Chief Executive and Founder of Trade Lenda, Mr Adeshina Adewumi revealed that the digital bank was setup with the lofty idea of democratising access to finance for the underserved small and medium-scale businesses across Nigeria, Africa and emerging markets.
He said: “We understood early on that inclusion must go beyond slogans. It must be built into the DNA of every financial solution, every policy and every partner that we force.”
In Adewuni’s words: “We saw the resilience of women in the markets; the ambition of youth-led enterprises and the quiet strength of impoverished retailers scattered across all the over 100 plus markets that we have across the nation. And we made a commitment to back them, to build for them and to believe in them.”
According too him, four years down-the-line, that vision has impacted many SMEs in the country stating Trade Lenda is not just a fintech platform.
“We are a movement for financial innovation and a catalyst for shared economic prosperity. We have always believed that inclusive finance is the foundational catalyst that we need for a thriving economy. In just four years, we have enabled thousands of small and medium-scale businesses with access to credit”, he stated.
The Trade Lenda who later was joined by his team to cut the anniversary cake, disclosed how his company partnered with various grassroots cooperatives, women-led groups and trade associations across the nation.
He noted further how Trade Lenda delivered real-time data and insights to support regulatory transparency, facilitated sustainable agriculture through its partners.
The excited CEO of the digital bank for SMEs said: “We have also empowered women, not just as beneficiaries, but as builders of our dear economy.”
He noted that Trade Lenda holds poverty eradication and food security very dear stressing that “we strongly believe that we need to be able to embrace data-driven tools to deliver assets to finance, which is what matters most. While also strengthening our infrastructure to ensure that this scale of financial inclusion delivers to everyone.”
While calling stakeholders’ alignment to achieve the Trade Lenda vision, he said that financial inclusion is not just a checkbox, it is a continuous mission, and we cannot do it alone.
“So to our partners in government, development, finance, corporations, non-governmental organisations, private sector representatives, and our partners, we invite you to join us as we scale our solution and prioritise impact over just profit.
“Let’s align around a shared vision where no hard-working entrepreneur is excluded from opportunities because of where they live, their gender, their religion, or the lack of common collateral.
“To our partners in government, we need policies that prioritise assets and affordability. To our investors, let’s finance the future of inclusion with intentional capital. To our regulators, once again, we are ready to work hand-in-hand to ensure that innovation is safe, scalable, and trusted. To development agencies, we seek more collaborations”, he said.
In panel session focusing on the theme of the celebration: Innovating for Impact: How Microfinancing is Powering the Next Wave of Inclusive Growth (Women, Capital Community), beneficiaries of the Trade Lenda financing gesture shared how much Trade Lenda has impacted their businesses.
The panel featured: Founder/CEO, Dharkag Food, Kofoworola Awoyera, Founder/CEO, Happy Coffee, Adeyinka Tekenah, as well as Trade Lenda partners, Head of Exploration, UNDP, Lantana Elwassan and Yonodu Okeugo of VFD Microfinance Bank.
